MIT OpenCourseWare launched in Vietnam

The signing ceremony took place on November 17, 2005 in Hanoi under the witness of Frank Jao, chairman of VEF and Professor Doctor Banh Tien Long, Deputy Minister of Education and Training.

OCW is a revolutionary and original initiative by MIT to put all educational materials from MIT's undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online. Once online, they are free and available to anyone with access to the Internet. The cooperation among MIT, VEF, MOET and VASC will make these vast and top-quality materials available inside Vietnam. MIT's OCW will be provided at mirror-websites inside Vietnam and on Local Area Network (LAN) of major universities across the country.

"This is a historic event for education in Vietnam. It began in June when Prime Minister Phan Van Khai received a briefing on OCW at MIT. We have moved with great speed to bring all available classroom learning materials from the MIT campus to the campuses and homes of Vietnamese students and teachers." said Kien Pham, Executive Director of VEF. "OCW has enormous potential to transform Vietnamese education," he added.

Tran Ba Viet Dung, Director of the International Cooperation Department of MOET who signs the MOU on behalf of MOET said "OCW is an important step to help Vietnam modernize its teaching curriculum and learning methods. We are pleased to be a partner with VEF, MIT and VASC in this endeavor."

VASC serves as the technical and logistics partner in the initiative. Its Chief Executive Officer, Nguyen Anh Tuan, said: "We are very excited for Vietnam and its education. The involvement of VEF and its Fellows in this project provide the linkage that we needed. Within 30 days from now, VASC will make MIT's OCW materials easily available to everyone inside Vietnam."

During the next several months, MOET, with the support of VASC and VEF, will launch a nationwide campaign including training workshops and seminars on OCW. Through VEF, MIT will provide to Vietnam all OCW software, hardware and content updates every six months.

(Source: VietNamNet)